The bishop, the religious ranter and the nice Mr Hill – the tale continues

Further to our story of yesterday about Mr Green and the contrite Bishop Benn, it seems that the latter has now specifically asked the former to withdraw the latter’s endorsement of the former’s idiocy in a booklet called Britain in Sin.

Green, you see – well, you do see if you know much about him – is, ahem, a bit of a, how shall we say, er . . .

He runs this tinpot right-wing outfit called Christian Voice, which is enough to give religion a bad name – if it didn’t already have one, which it does.

One form in which it doesn’t have a bad name is when people just get on with it and believe in others’ freedom to do their thing, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else or frighten the horses.

And that makes me think of a think tank I’ve often quoted in this blog called Ekklesia, which I monitor. You don’t have to believe in a god in order to appreciate the words of some who do.

And it’s Symon Hill’s article on the Ekklesia site that has informed me of the contrite bishop’s wish to wash his hands of the tommyrot that Stephen Green has upchucked into print.

Hill writes:

Along with several other bloggers, I drew attention two days ago to Bishop Benn’s endorsement of a booklet called Britain in Sin, written by Stephen Green of the fundamentalist group Christian Voice. The booklet opposes the welfare state, legislation guaranteeing equal pay to men and women, power-sharing in Northern Ireland and the UK’s membership of the United Nations.

A couple of days ago an email came to Ekklesia from the press office of Bishop Benn (well, Suffragan Bishop, but that waters down the alliteration) to say that, after endorsing Green’s booklet, the good bishop wished to disassociate himself from it. Later, his press officer sent another email, quoting Benn: “I have asked Stephen Green of Christian Voice to immediately withdraw my apparent endorsement of his booklet. I apologise for any hurt caused or misunderstanding given.”

By the way, in my post yesterday I appeared to make light of OCD, or obsessive compulsive disorder, and Symon Hill, who suffers from it as a clinical condition, ticked me off in a comment.

No offence meant, Symon. I know it’s listed in clinical circles as a clinical condition, but I dare say we can still use it – as people do with many other bits of terminology – with a degree of levity. And it was so used, diluted by the words “something of a” before it, as well as being a play on several initials: “OTT OCD”.

And thanks for looking in.